Twitter made unexpected layoffs this weekend as the company struggled with declining revenue and aggressive cost-cutting under CEO Elon Musk.
The first information to report about the layoffs said that the company let go of at least 50 employees on Saturday in various departments, including engineers who help keep the social network running.
The layoffs also included “hardcore Musk confidants,” tweeted Zoë Schiffer, who covers the company closely for Platformer. He added that the layoffs included “a lot of surprises.” For example, he tweetedamong those fired was Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments.
One of our senior product managers, Martijn de Kuijper, tweeted that he had been locked out of his email account. De Kuijper, who founded Revue, an editorial newsletter tool acquired by Twitter in 2021, tweeted: “People wake up to find my email locked. I think I was released. Now my Revue journey is over.
Since Musk took over the company in October last year, Twitter’s headcount has dropped by more than 70%, and its main source of revenue, advertising, has dropped significantly.
Musk has tried to generate income in other ways, but so far, these efforts have failed to improve the company’s financial position. Among these efforts is Twitter Blue, a monthly subscription service that includes a blue verification check mark. The service got off to a rough start when trolls used it to impersonate brands and celebrities. According to Information, in the middle of last month only about 180,000 users registered for the service.
Many advertisers have been wary of where Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” will take the platform. That didn’t stop Musk from becoming controversial this weekend, despite the layoff.
Musk defended Scott Adams, the creator of “Dilbert,” after newspapers across the country pulled the comic over comments he called “racist,” “hateful,” and “discriminatory.” Adams has described black people as members of a “hate group” from which white people should “stay away”.
Musk tweeted: “For a *very* long time, the US media was racist against non-whites, now it’s racist against whites & Asians. The same thing is happening to colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not to be racist.
Musk also this weekend applauded a Saturday Night Live opening monologue by Woody Harrelson touching on the COVID vaccine and the pandemic. The actor spoke about one of the “craziest scripts” he’s ever read.
“So the movie goes like this,” the actor explained. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy all the media and all the politicians and force everyone around the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only get out if they take cartel drugs and keep taking them.
“I threw away the script,” he later joked. “I mean, who would believe that crazy idea? Forced to do drugs? I do it voluntarily all day.
must tweeted in reply, “So based. Good job @nbcsnl!”
As one Twitter user wrote, “Get ready to melt” in response to Musk’s monologue the answer: “Maybe the same [media outlets] don’t you realize that the propaganda is wrong?”
Musk also revealed the origins of the pandemic afterwards The Wall Street Journal It was reported Sunday that the US Department of Energy is leaning toward the lab leak theory, joining the FBI on the matter.
When fellow PayPal alum David Sacks shared an article and tweeted Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and others are behind the disinformation campaign about the laboratory origin of the coronavirus, Musk. the answer“Absolutely.”
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